Belgian artist Francis Alÿs employs a broad range of media, from painting to performance, and his diverse body of work often explores urbanity and spatial objectivity through investigations of the tension between poetics and politics, individual action and impotence. Operating within the interdisciplinary space of art, architecture, and social practice, his idealistic and symbolic actions accentuate political challenges and anxieties. Central to this catalogue for a solo exhibition of work by Alÿs at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo are his actions at Key West (USA) and Havana, and at the Strait of Gibraltar. Included are essays by curators Yuki Kamiya and Kazuhiko Yoshizaki.

Publisher: Seigensha Art Publishing, Inc.

Artist(s): Francis Alÿs

Contributor(s): Yukie Kamiya, Kazuhiko Yoshizaki

Designer:

Printer:

Publication Date: 2013

Binding: Softcover

Dimensions: 7 x 10 1/4 in (17.8 x 26 cm)

Pages: 122

Reproductions: Illustrated throughout

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ISBN: 9784861524011

Retail: $35 US & Canada | £29 | €33

Status:Out of Print

Stock:
Out of stock

Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs’s art is centered around observations of, and engagements with, everyday life. His multifaceted projects include public actions, installations, videos, paintings, and drawings; the artist himself has described his work as “a sort of discursive argument composed of episodes, metaphors, or parables.” Across these different media, Alÿs presents his distinct poetic and imaginative sensibility towards anthropological and political concerns. His actions have involved traveling the longest possible route between locations in Mexico and the United States to highlight the increasing obstacles imposed along the border; pushing a melting block of ice through city streets; commissioning sign painters to copy his paintings; filming his efforts to enter the center of a tornado; carrying a leaking can of paint along the contested Israel/Palestine border; and equipping hundreds of volunteers to move a colossal sand dune ten centimeters.